Man and Monster
by Ariadne Bassarid
Summary: AU. Ryou sheds his meek exterior to pursue Bakura, the vampire that killed Anzu, across 19th century Europe. [Bakura x Ryou x Anzu]
1. France

Warnings:

1. This is an entirely new experiment for me.

2. I hate to perhaps spoil my story now - but to save enraged readers later, I'm telling you at the start that I've already written this, and if you're not a fan of shonnen-ai, then you will _probably _not like what I've done with it. Consider yourself warned.

3. If you're here 'cause you're a huge Anzu fan, she's not so much actually in this as she is mentioned in this.

* * *

One.

The year was 1830 and France, as usual, was restless. This didn't concern Ryou, even though he was currently travelling through it. What concerned him was the man opposite on the train. In this locomotive, Arthur P. Pennydrake was puffing his cigar, huffing his substantial belly, and in between those actions, talking incessantly about his honeymoon plans.

"Sir," Ryou interrupted.

Pennydrake paused mid-sentence and arched an eyebrow, surprised that the... person he had been forced to share carriage with would interrupt him.

"I mean you no offence, but kindly shut up."

Arthur P. Pennydrake gaped and then his face grew very, very red. He rescued his cigar where it was about fall from his trembling lips, but did not spare a glance for the other two inhabitants of their train compartment. Ryou, on the other hand, did.

The shiney and new Mrs Pennydrake looked uncertain. Of course, that was how she had looked when she first boarded the train - why should now be any different? She wasn't particularly pretty, but she was young and soft with curled brown hair, and it was understandable why an older, rounder man like Arthur, who oozed wealth and prestige, would fancy her for a wife.

The woman next to Ryou, on the other hand, had not said a word the entire journey. She was old and small, with a squint and a shrewd expression like a crow. Her feathery hair, much the same white as the formidable Arthur's and Ryou's own, was wound attractively in a snare. She held herself stiffly upright in an old black dress. Arthur's dismay did not bother her.

"How dare you?" he demanded now, facing Ryou.

Ryou carefully arranged his face to show a polite blank expression - it was easy. He'd been doing it all his life, after all, and had made great use of it recently around all the meaningless condolences and the pompous funeral Anzu's father had insisted on throwing. No, don't think of that.

"How dare you speak to me in such a manner, you, you - vagabond! It's bad enough that my wife and I have been forced to regard you as our travelling companion, the least you can grant us is a civil tongue!"

Ryou laughed somewhat humourlessly. His dark brown eyes flashed from beneath the leather hat he wore pulled down over his white ponytail. A few loose strands splayed around his face. He supposed he did look like a vagabond. His hair hadn't been fashionably styled in weeks and his clothing was not gentlemanly - his black boots, which stopped just beneath the knee, were muddied and scuffed, his breeches were a pale tan colour and relatively clean but not pressed and his shirt was fit to his lithe body, yet it lacked the frills and lace it should have carried. Furthermore, Ryou's high-waisted, long-tailed coat which suited the breeches he was wearing was covered with an extremely unfashionable, long leather garment he had ordered from a blacksmith. It too was patched with mud.

Breeches were out of style, anyway. Arthur P. Pennydrake was wearing pants - he was fashionable. But Arthur P. Pennydrake hadn't boarded the train after abandoning a horse he was forced to shoot in the middle of the night.

Something must have flashed in Ryou's eyes as he stared back at the aristocrat. Pennydrake paled a little.

"Forgive me, Sir," Ryou said softly but void of emotion, "But your endless chatter of your own happiness does nought but remind me of my own unhappiness, and so I would ask you to stop it."

Pennydrake blustered. "I suppose I should be ashamed of my good fortune in wedding this lovely rosebud?" He gestured to his wife, who coloured slightly under her many layers of dress and frilled bonnet. "Damned if I will take orders from someone like you!"

Ryou stood abruptly and seized his large leather travelling bag. Pennydrake blanched from his chair, yet stared him back in the eye.

Ryou heard a wheezing sound next to him and slowly turned his head to see the old woman laughing. "_Asseyez-vous_," she rasped at him. He stared back defiantly. "Where you gonna go, hmm, _mon cher_? Out _le_ window, _non_?" her French accent was heavy and colloquial, and she laughed again. "Now _assiez-toi_ before you cause a fuss."

Very slowly, Ryou returned to his seat. He glared at the happy couple opposite him for a moment, trying to pretend that they did not make his throat ache. He would not see those empty blue eyes again. He would not see it again. He turned to look out the window at the blurred green countryside.

Outstared by an old woman. He was a marvellous vampire hunter.


	2. Romania

**AN:** A whole two reviews. w00t. Not that I really expected this weird little fic to have a large fanbase attracted to it. **PS**, I ought to tell you that you totally rock and I'm so, so grateful that you read many of my fics and leave me so many notes. And also sort of the same thing to **Black Breeze**, but to a slightly lesser extent, heh. Don't worry, I have nothing else to do, either, and I wrote the entire eight chapters for this fic in one day. They just need minor revisions, so there won't be any great delays in getting them posed. Happy reading.

* * *

The journey through the Carpathians had been slow and difficult so far. Everybody here was so suspicious... Finding lodgings was becoming quite a problem.

Ryou sighed under his breath and curled his fingers around the mug of hot liquid the tavern owner had deposited on his table moments earlier. Its spicy scent travelled up and seemed to fill his head, and he allowed himself a moment of pleasure, eyes closed, savouring the fruity sensation which tickled his tongue before he even raised the wooden cup to drink.

The taverness was back behind the counter, staring at him warily. Visitors were not welcome after dark in these parts. The undead might be the subjects of many popular plays and poems back home in England, but Ryou could not forget that less than a century ago this entire region had been seized by vampire hysteria.

How provincial. How naive. How superstitious.

In an earlier incarnation Ryou had agreed. Of course, in an earlier incarnation Ryou had been the perfect son, about to assume the perfect post in the House of Lords and marry the perfect match. And here he was sitting, back against the wall, watching the communal room of a Romanian tavern in his long coat, his perpetually dirty clothes. His hat, which was now well-shaped to his head, was sitting on the bench beside him. It left his long white hair to catch the firelight.

_Now_ he was lucky he even had a bed for the night.

It was probably the hair that made the woman stare at him. She leaned on the counter, ignoring the only other customer the inn appeared to have, with a look too dark to be curiosity in her eyes. Her hair was wound up around her head, a rich rust colour, and her clothes were clean, pressed, but shabby - a soft brown cloth carefully stitched into a modest dress. She seemed barely in her mid-twenties but the strain of her business was beginning to show in shallow creases around her eyes. Must have inherited the inn, which was named Andrei's. Perhaps her father.

She hadn't wanted to open the door - but of course, that was why Ryou had picked this inn. She had to open the door. Business was slow as the rain churned the entire countryside to mud. Mud mountains. Not many people were foolish enough to travel in this weather. And he wouldn't rip out her throat.

Not like the vampire sitting across the room. And the vampire had picked the inn for the same reason Ryou had. Actually, the vampire had picked the entire country to make things difficult for Ryou. It didn't matter that Bakura's hair was the same flashy white as Ryou's own. It didn't matter that he was tall, strong, with dark slanted eyes and broad shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist, or that he walked like something continually stalking prey. It didn't even matter that his skin was the same pale ivory as Ryou's.

He was a vampire. He could easily influence the people around him to ignore his appearance, to win their trust, to get them to -

Ryou swallowed a sip of his cider. It was sweeter than expected.

And of course, the traits that in Bakura seemed so easy, charismatic even, in Ryou became threatening. Wyrd. Ryou was learning to be every bit as predatory as Bakura really was, and in a mere human the trait was far too conspicuous. It would be too ironic if Ryou ended up on trial - if you could call it trial, in these parts - for vampirism while his quarry laughed in the background.

Not that he blamed the vampire. On this point, no. For everything else, why not? But on this point, it was actually quite smart. Ryou had been following too easily. His aim was improving. His body, once slender and frail - exercised only on hunts designed to improve his social standing - was now developing the same steely tenacity as his mind. Leading him into more difficult territory had been suitably cunning.

It almost made Ryou proud. It was surely a sign that he had Bakura worried. Until now the fiend had laughed him off, easily. Had taunted him. Had left him lying face-down, or face-up, or standing shouting after a demon, a dark laughter echoing in the night.

On the other hand, Ryou reflected as the pale creature across the room raised his hand casually - and their attendant walked over eagerly - Bakura didn't exactly seem worried right now. He didn't seem worried at all. Ryou removed one hand from his warm cup to slide a set of long fingers inside his loose shirt and pull out a silver cross. It caught the light gently, and Ryou angled that light, throwing it back across the room to hit his opponent's eyes.

He smiled as Bakura winced.

_Big brave hunter_, a voice resounded caustically in his head. Ryou stopped smiling. _Get that thing out of my face. Don't make me do it myself._

Ryou glared stubbornly and watched as Bakura casually extended one hand to the woman beside him. The barmaid's face blanked as she accepted his gesture, and with a sluggish movement, she sat beside him on the seat. Bakura arched one eyebrow pointedly, and then ever so slowly lifted his other hand to gracefully trail his fingernails down the woman's neck.

Ryou made a sound low in his throat, and put away his trinket. Teasing a vampire was a stupid idea. A shame he couldn't resist doing it. It didn't matter really anyway - as long as the cross was around his neck, it protected him from much of the vampire's dark wiles and mind tricks. But he was never going to get the bastard if he couldn't control his petty urges.

Of course, he wouldn't have a those urges if it wasn't for the bastard.

"We're here by pure coincidence tonight, Ryou." This time Bakura spoke aloud. His voice was calm and so seemed less rough than usual. It seemed almost reasonable, and it hinted of alluring things. "It's such a night out; I'd hate for you to have to try and find a room elsewhere."

Ryou did not reply. He took another slow sip of his cider. It was cooling now. He was just beginning to feel warm, however - he didn't relish the thought of being forced out into the night.

Bakura grinned, and it was purely wicked. "You just sit there and finish your drink, and I'll," Bakura leaned towards the girl beside him, running his cheek along hers and inhaling deeply in much the same way Ryou had breathed his cider, "...I'll enjoy mine."

In one smooth motion Ryou had stood and overturned his wooden table, despite its solid weight, then crouched behind it again - his mug of lukewarm fruit drink in one hand, not a drop spilled, and in his other a small crossbow that had been seized from where it was slung against his back, hidden by his long coat.

The innkeeper was screaming at him in the local language he barely understood. She stood alone across the room.

Ryou glared at her as she marched towards him, switching to a laboured English. "What? What in God's name are you doing? This is the thanks I get for opening my door? Ruining my inn and pointing weapons at me! Get out! Get out, get out!"

Ryou ducked out from behind the table - out of reach of her swinging hands - and grabbed his bag. He slipped adeptly past her towards the door. She swiped after him with a dishrag, still screeching. She couldn't touch him - if only vampires were that slow and clumsy.

Ryou was not really listening to her curses as he sucked in a breath and pushed out into the wind and rain. He was hearing that laughter, that familiar laughter, that devil's laughter and the voice in his head.

_What did you think you were doing to do? Shoot me with her standing in front?_

Ryou stomped angrily through a puddle, willing the hoarse mocking to fade. Willing everything to fade. He was a fool on a madman's quest and he was going to spend another night in this forsaken country sleeping in the mud. He headed away from the lights of the inn, knowing Andrei's daughter would be rousing anyone nearby to tell them of the stranger who scared away her other customer, who attacked her. He headed into the woods.

Mud, black, wet. His footsteps barely squelched over the sound of the rain and he sighed, vainly trying to pull his coat shut against the chilled wind. He was a joke. If Bakura cared about anything, Ryou would be dead already. If Bakura gave a damn that he was being followed across Europe by a forsaken husband, he would have taken care of the problem months ago.

Ryou sank to his knees in the black mud. "I'll kill you," he whispered, the sound drowned by the heavy fall of water and the howling of the night. "I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you."

_Not tonight you won't._


	3. Spain

The horse rippled beneath him and Ryou leaned forward, careful to move with the swift muscles beneath him and not to bump his head on the bobbing neck. He strove to cling to the animal without a saddle. They raced along a dark country road, the moon above bulging like a pregnant star, heavy in the black sky.

It lit his path, though not well enough for the gallop to be safe. Ryou was breathing heavily and he pitied the horse. What if, what if, what if, his brain was chanting as the adrenaline chased the thoughts back and forth. What if it twists an ankle. What if it steps in a hole. What if neither of them see a fallen log. What if something startles the poor beast.

"Go!" Ryou shouted wildly, urging the animal on and silencing his own thoughts. The sound echoed through the night, crazy, competing with the repeating thudding of the horse's hooves.

For one startling moment Ryou was an extension of the horse they moved like a liquid across the wild fields, Ryou's coat billowing across the horse's back, flowing out with its tail. For one startling moment the horse was the road and the moon and the world and Ryou forgot what he was chasing after and forgot even the woman whose name lived on his tongue in a silent word.

Then suddenly he was hurtling through the air, propelled by a silver and blood-red shape, a dark-eyed, pale-skinned demon that flew out of nowhere. His brain registered the swirling world in a slow movement as the stallion screamed in the background, and felt himself pressed against a cold and immovable force, his hat falling from away from where he had jammed it down on his head, his white hair spilling out into the moonlight and mingling with his attacker's own around them both like a splintered yet concentrated moonbeam.

Then Ryou hit the dirt with a sickening crunch and the whole world that for a moment, he had been part of, ceased to exist.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Yay, I got a couple more reviews on the second chapter, heh... Yes, I can see this is absurdly short and tantalising. Sorry, that's what you get.

**Black Breeze**: Thanks. I hope I continue to be interesting because the style I leaped into for this fic is quite odd, as you can see from my disconnected chapters. And yeah, sort of a Ryou x Bakura x Anzu thing, though Anzu doesn't really feature as much as a character as she does in memory. It's more about Ryou and Bakura and obsession in general, and I'll say no more.

**ssp**: Thanks for reading... I wouldn't go and forget my other fics, would I? Okay, so they got a little delayed... ;)

**PS**: Well, Bakura's generally an annoying kind of guy, anyway. He's so much fun like that. ;)

**Downtrodded**: I'm glad you like it; hope you keep liking it. I confess to being a vampire novel fan. But any of the vampire/Yu Gi Oh fics you come across (and god knows why it's a _great _idea, heh) have, like, Téa as some kind of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I wanted to do something totally different. I can imagine Ryou turning around and kicking butt if he had his heart broken, so perhaps it's not _too_ wildly inconceivable.

New chap will be up in a couple of days.


	4. Italy

**Author's note:** Thank you, my two reviewers. This is short again, but the next one is much longer and jam-packed with... stuff. ;)

Funny you should mention breaking YOUR arm, **PS**... ;)

And to **Black Breeze**: Come on, would I kill Ryou? Well, I don't _think_ so. Generally only the Wachowkis like to kill off their heroes...  Hehe...

* * *

When in Rome. Ryou smiled wryly as he entered the opera house.

He'd had to acquire presentable clothing in order to do so, and his long black pants carefully covered the fact that he was wearing high boots, not gentleman's shoes. He wore a dark blue waist-jacket with gold buttons and long tails, and his hair, though it had not been trimmed, was carefully tied back and hidden beneath a black hat. He had left his coat in the modest palazzo. It would be more than a little unseemly tonight.

It had taken some effort and much of his small store of funds to dress himself so, but his quarry would be here tonight. Italy was not far enough to run to after Ryou's arm had healed. He flexed his fingers of his right hand now, unconsciously, reassuring himself that he had full mobility once again.

Ryou tipped his hat to the footmen on the large, gold and ornate doors to the main hall, and they stared suspiciously at him as he passed by. The opera he was about to see was brand new, L'elisir d'amore by Donizetti, though he wasn't interested in that. Romantic opera held nothing for him.

When he had found his seat in a balcony row, Ryou pulled out a small gold pair of sunglasses, and looked over the large hall. The stage below was framed with more of the ornate, gold-painted wood of the doors, red curtains, and the seats were red and plush. The colour red would never be the same to him again, and he sighed to think it. Bakura would fit in well here, with his penchant for dark red coats and swirling cloaks.

And there he was - but he wasn't wearing red. Ryou had almost skipped over the party because of it, and he reprimanded himself silently. It was foolish mistakes like this that kept him so far behind the vampire. Foolish mistakes like this that would get him killed.

Though, he had been single-mindedly pursuing Bakura for nearly three years now. Three long years since that day in 1829 when the devil had stolen a life that might as well have been Ryou's. And here, high above Bakura, he was supposed to be far behind, so perhaps it was not as bad as that. But the months it had taken his arm to recuperate had cost him, in both geographical distance and his own physical speed - a speed that had taken him two and a half years to attain. Of all the injuries he'd sustained, the arm bothered him the most.

Now he was forced to stalk Bakura if he could. Sit high above and monitor his actions, hoping to spot some pattern, some action that would reveal - what? A weakness? Did the monster have a weakness?

He was currently surrounded by three voluptuous women, gesturing coyly and grinning handsomely as they threw back their heads, giggled, waved their large fans and blushed, rearranging their dresses. And of course, he chose tonight to dress differently - black. Black shirt, black pants, black cloak, black hat. His skin, the skin that Ryou might have deemed unnaturally pale if he hadn't shared that same almost translucent hue, was shining like a smooth, inviting marble - how fitting for Rome. How fitting for Italy. His hair was tied back in the same fashion as Ryou's.

Soon the lights dimmed and went out and the stage lit. The music - comical, heartfelt, romantic - tried to reach Ryou with its soaring Italian but he resisted it, keeping his attention carefully schooled on the gentleman devil below.


	5. Italy

**Warnings**: Nudity, violence, swearing, angst.

Notes: This chapter really goes off, so I had to change the rating of the entire story. Before you get involved (hopefully) in it... Thanks to Downtrodded and PS and Black Breeze for reviewing... You guys prevent me from feeling like a reject, here. ;)

Black Breeze, and a long note on the time scheme... Apparently my references were too subtle? Heh. I don't feel too comfortable explaining my story outright, because it makes me feel like I haven't done my job as a writer. On the other hand, the simple encounters in this story turn out to be quite complicated, so I'll try not to make my explanation _too_ confusing...

Okay, the way the story is planned out in my head, **we begin** in 1830, around six months after Anzu was killed (in 1829). Ryou is a shiney new vampire hunter, and frustrated. **Chapter two** picks up in Romania, around another six months later... He's more experienced, but still unpolished. **Chapter three** (although it never says so apart from the chapter title) is in Spain and in chap four Ryou has a broken arm, from which you are meant to infer that he broke his arm falling from the horse in chapter three. It's noted there that it had taken Ryou two and a half years to get his hunting skills as they were, and then his arm took six months to heal - that sets **chapter four** as _three_ years after 1829 when Anzu died, six months after chapter three, and in 1932 (which, incidentally, is the year of Donizetti's _L'elisir d'amore_, the opera Ryou and Bakura are attending). **The chapter posted here** is in the weeks following Ryou's appearance at the opera. For future reference, **chapter six** is set nearly a year after chapter five, and **chapter seven** is a few months after chapter six, the towards the end of 1933. The **eighth** and final chapter is set about three months after THAT, which I guess would make it by then early-mid 1834 and five whole years since Anzu died.

Complicated, yes? Anyway, the scenes in this story are intended to give the general impression of the passing of time, the point being that Ryou's obsession is consuming his life and his encounters with the vampire Bakura - many of which are only hinted at in the story - are blurring his perception of the world. I think. I don't know, I didn't articulate it to myself when I thought it up, I just did it.

Any other questions? Ask away. But now, finally: on with the chapter!

* * *

The feel of a warmth leaving his bed caused Ryou to stir. Lost in time for a moment, he smiled absently, before a memory etched deep into his person ran into his conscious thoughts and caused him to bolt upright.

She was walking across the room and she was and wasn't herself. The naked body that had been keeping him company was walking towards the balcony, her blonde hair spilling down her smooth, olive, Italian skin, but Ryou was seeing double. He saw anew suddenly, as the rose and milk skin of Anzu, clad modestly in a long, white and frilled nightgown, walked away from him.

React, react, a small section in the back of Ryou's mind whispered now but he was frozen as the Italian girl, the girl whose name he didn't even learn, was unlatching the door.

He saw Anzu lift her hand, her sweet, delicate, small hand with the carefully maintained nails, and reach towards the window.

Why did he leave his weapons so far away?

He saw the balmy night enter the room and blow back long blonde Italian silk, and he saw a soft chilled breeze curl itself into another room at another time, and ruffle the short, attractive and fashionably-curled brown hair of his new wife.

After what seemed like a lifetime had passed, Ryou's body took over and performed the action it wanted to. He hurled himself out of the bed, as naked as the woman he had so recently lost himself in - but instead of running towards her, he lunged at the table across the room, the table bearing the porcelain bowl in which he could wash and a razor and a small mirror - the table bearing his long and slim percussion-cap gun.

Plucking it off the smooth wooden surface, Ryou somewhere registered the worn-down grain as once again the time in which he acted was out of synch - Ryou whirled, spun smoothly, aimed through open balcony door and fired.

There was a moment of tangible silence as he ceased to move, waiting, waiting to see if his arm would once again let him down. Another moment later the olive-skinned beauty shrieked, her green eyes clearing, looking down at herself and across at Ryou. She screamed again at the gun in his hand, and shook her head, gesturing in a pleading manner, confused that she was naked by an open window or even awake at all.

Ryou hesitated, faced with the horrified expression on the woman whose charms he had so recently succumbed to, and that moment of hesitation was all it took for the entire glass front of the balcony doors to implode inward.

As they did so the girl crumpled to the floor, flicked by a few stray pieces of glass. Ryou felt a clear splinter dash his cheek and numbly, belatedly, averted his eyes from the debris. A moment later something soft hit him in the face and he turned and with a loud crack fired the only other bullet in his gun, his left hand scraping at -

His pants? Ryou looked up. The vampire was standing opposite him, in the doorway that no longer contained doors. He was wearing the black outfit he wore so often these days, perhaps to be more inconspicuous than in red - though he had no coat and his shirt billowed out, loosely tucked in over tight pants. He wore a pair of black gloves and the shirt gaped across an expanse of his pale chest. His hair, however, was still neatly arranged and covered by his tall hat.

Ryou looked again. He was going to die. He knew it was going to happen because he couldn't think about anything. He should have noticed the first time what he saw now on his second take - oh thank you, right arm. There was a bloody hole in the front of Bakura's chest - the shirt was gaping because he had shot a button away. His aim had been true.

Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be bothering Bakura in the least, though it must have caught him by surprise if he'd temporarily lost control of his subject.

"Put on your pants," Bakura said with a curve of his lip that was neither a smile nor a grimace.

Ryou continued to stare blankly, blood running down the side of his face where the piece of glass had cut him. Why was it that facial cuts always seemed to bleed the most? "Why, so you can kill me while I fumble?"

Bakura's eyes flicked up and down the pale body he stood opposite. Their shade of brown deepened and Bakura bared his teeth with that peculiar raised lip again - this time enough to show his fangs, the long curved incisors and the elongated teeth on either side.

"No." Bakura said quietly. "Killing you while you were naked - or even half dressed - would be most undignified."

Ryou found his voice. "Fuck you!" he shouted, hurling his useless gun towards the vampire.

Bakura was quite suddenly two paces to the left.

"I don't think so. Though if you ask her nicely," Bakura said, nudging the body of the Italian girl with his foot, "She might comply a second time. Then again, I doubt it - you did fire a gun at her."

Ryou yelled wordlessly in his rage, pulling on the pants that had caused him to waste his shot.

"What do you want from me?" he shouted. By the time he looked up again - only a few moments later - Bakura's chest was healed. Blood still trailed wetly from where the bullet had passed through him.

"May I remind you that you are the one who has been following me across Rome to operas and parties and other social gatherings I don't recall inviting you to?" Bakura smirked.

Ryou threw the porcelain bowl from the table next to him, but didn't bother aiming for Bakura. Instead it smashed on the wall, above the head of the bed he had been so cruelly awakened from.

A pounding began at the door to his room. Voices shouted, barely intelligible in their cacophany of Italian.

"...Having a bit of a temper tantrum?"

Ryou shouted again and dove for the bag he carried everywhere, grabbing the first item he could find. It was a large vial of holy water, which he had the presence of mind not to hurl at a target that could dodge it effortlessly, but to instead empty it over his own head. It stung the cut on his cheek as his other hand sought and found a more active weapon. Ryou seized the reasonably-sized silver blade he'd wanted, and now launched himself across the room.

He was surprised to actually make contact with the vampire's cold flesh, and more surprised when the impact of himself against what always appeared as immovable as a wall carried them both onto the floor.

Ryou heard his own mindless shouting continue as Bakura, beneath him, fell onto the sharp shards of glass that he'd strewn across the wooden floor. Bakura groaned loudly, his hands reaching to push Ryou away and he groaned again - a steam was rising from where Ryou's bare chest was making contact with his own chest, because of torn shirt - and now his hands were touching as well. The holy water was searing him.

It seemed to be causing him a lot more pain than the knife Ryou had plunged into his stomach.

The two grappled on the floor for a moment as the blood began to blossom outward. Ryou thought for a moment perhaps he would push the knife so hard it pinned Bakura to the floor and Bakura cried out loudly as Ryou, his hands still damp, brushed the wound and caused it to begin smoking as well.

In one strange moment, Bakura snapped at Ryou viciously with his teeth, like a mad dog struggling against a rope, and then Ryou's gaze snapped upwards and he looked dead into the dark brown eyes that matched his own. He could feel it happen - a drop of blood from the gash just below his cheekbone suddenly dropped and splattered onto the vampire's lower lip.

Bakura gave a howl caught between pain and passion and suddenly the two rolled over the floor. Ryou felt the small spikes of glass as they pierced his unprotected back and cried out.

Without further warning, Bakura was gone - and with him Ryou's knife. Ryou gave a sound caught between a sob and a growl of frustration as he lay limply on the floor. His skin stung where it had come into contact with the burning vampire's. Good. He hoped maybe he'd done some damage to the bastard, though he knew better than to think Bakura had run off to die.

The door to his hotel room burst open suddenly. Apparently the female proprietor of the palazzo had finally found somebody game enough to break it down. Three burly Italian gentlemen crashed into the room and stopped in mid-step.

Ryou glanced around for an escape route. Where was he going to go? Out the window? Fucking flying vampires. How dare he? How dare Bakura come here and so brutally remind Ryou of the events that played out on his own wedding night? Just when Ryou thought he might be ready to tackle the bloodsucking monster that had killed her, the bastard threw something else at him to make him lose his head.

The proprietess rushed into the room, talking shrilly, and throwing her dressing gown over the naked body of the unconscious Italian girl. Maybe that was Ryou's lesson then.

He lay on the floor and there was no confusion this time as to the sound he was making. Ryou sobbed.


	6. Romania

The creature in front of Ryou flashed a frightened expression. Torchlight caught its eyes and it winced.

Ryou sighed.

"W-w-what are you doing?" it stammered.

It was almost pitiful. It wasn't the one he'd been searching for. Just another false lead. Another fake trail. Something to drag him to the wrong end of the continent, yet again. He'd been stupid to go back into the Carpathians. He should have known better - after how they had fought there last time and the way they had both barely escaped village after suspicious village with their lives, Bakura was too wary to come back to this dark and godforsaken countryside. Too smart.

Ryou had thought perhaps the time had dulled the vampire's common sense but all he had now to show for it was another rogue, cornered in a barn.

"I'm not the one!"

"That much is obvious," Ryou said, regretting already what he was about to do. He balanced the scythe in his left hand cautiously. The harvesting device had a long, curved and vicious blade. He had to be careful with it, hampered by the burning torch he also carried.

This pale, quick-eyed, blonde vampire was not the creature he was searching for. Was nothing like him. Shouldn't have even been a member of the undead, but then, it was a disease that anyone could catch.

"Y-y-you let the last one go!"

Ryou hesitated in his steps across the crunching straw ground. He shrugged and said coldly, "I told him to pass on the message. He decided instead to drink a Deutsche village dry. I caught up with him and rectified my error of judgement."

That was a lie. He hadn't rectified it - he'd be trying to rectify it for the rest of his life. Because of his weakness that whole village was dead. But he had killed the bloodsucker dead in return. He should have seen it coming. They were all alike. Parasitic, unholy demons.

Ryou swallowed and chose to ignore a flash that tried to contradict that thought - the memory of a memory, the nights he had spent in bitter contemplation of that panicked, so-human look in Bakura's eyes in the moment before the vampire had fled in Italy.

"I won't kill anybody!"

"Yes, you will," Ryou argued, tired. "You always do."

Without warning, he hurled the lit torch at the cowering vampire and threw himself after it, switching the large scythe to the correct position. The vampire began to shriek as the fire instantly spread across his body, but he didn't shriek for more than an instant, as Ryou chased close behind the flames and effortlessy swung, lopping the vampire's head off. The momentum carried him a few paces beyond.

The fire spread quickly through the straw. Ryou walked away, leaving the locals to clean up the mess while he borrowed one of their horses. He wondered idly if Anzu would be proud of what he had become, knowing the answer and refusing to think it.


	7. Egypt

Author's Note: A big thank you for reading and reviewing, to...

a song for jeffrey: Yay, a new victim! ;)

Black Breeze: Split personality, now?

Downtrodded: I adored that sentence. 'I never thought of him thinking about what Anzu would think of this.' That's a really fun sentence. Yeah, poor Ryou. This is so mean to him.

PS: Intriguing and remarkable, eh? Good luck with the social studies... Blargh...

...One more chapter to go, and it's sooo tiny...

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Egypt in 1833 was too hot for the coat that was Ryou's second skin. The long leather caused a thin line of sweat to trickle down his back. He carefully brushed his loose hair under his large flopping hat so that the shorter pieces near his face didn't obscure his vision. He'd rather forgo a shirt than remove his coat - which is what he had ended up doing.

In the day he wouldn't have dared the sun so brazenly to mark his pale skin, but it was night time now and the moonlight over this desert country was as gentle as the moon over any other. It was the heat, rising up from the earth even now, that made Ryou swelter. He could feel the warm ground easily in his bare feet - he'd given up trying to keep sand and dust out of any kind of shoe.

Despite the melting sensation he was experiencing, he remained motionless against the high, sand-brick, outer wall of the brothel.

He could hear English voices raised inside, floating out of an upstairs window, and suppressed a chuckle. Even if any of his countrymen walked by, even if by some miracle it happened to be one of the fine upstanding citizens who had known his family, manoeuvred him into the parliament he abandoned, shook his hand roughly while he suppressed the tears a twenty year old man could not shed over - even if one of those persons chanced upon him in this scandalous attire, they would pretend they'd seen nothing lest it ever be mentioned that they were in the bad part of town.

Apparently the archaeology penchant his compatriots had been indulging was still in full swing.

Anyway, who was he fooling? They probably would not recognise him now with the affect his four absent years had had on his maturing jawline, the muscles and speed he'd built, the way he had acquired of walking and the violent... And the violence.

Ryou allowed himself a sigh.

But he was so close. Closer than he'd ever been. He had Bakura on the run. He'd really, truly had him on the run. The vampire was scared of him. He'd tried to run and here Ryou was, and this lead had to be the one that led him to that white-haired devil.

Ryou suppressed another laugh - not that he hadn't been referred to as the same, lately.

Maybe he was going crazy if he found this funny, or maybe the tension that was building between his shoulders in this heat was just getting to him.

There. That was it. Down the street at another establishment providing the same valuable services as the one he lingered outside of, there was a flash of white hair. Ryou ran, dodging the few wavering drunks and satisfied (or yet to be satisfied men) making their way down the road. His leather coat flashed behind him and his linen pants clung to his legs in the heat.

He counted as he ran. He'd timed this. He'd counted the footsteps and the seconds and - now!

He hurtled around the corner, reaching into one of the useful pockets of his coats. Seizing a long, sharp wooden stake and at the same time grabbing the body in front of him, he caught its unyielding weight by surprise and threw it against the wall, his other arm across Bakura's throat. The stake pointed directly at his heart.

The vampire blinked, a fog of blood clearing from his dark brown eyes. Ryou had timed it right. His target had just fed and now struggled to rise out of the sated lethargy his bloodlust had been turned to.

"Hello, Ryou," he said, almost curious, looking his assailant in the eye.

"Now you die," Ryou said simply, and applied all the considerable force he knew was necessary to drive a stake of wood through a sternum. He pushed the wicked point of the through the hard and pale flesh of Bakura's chest.

Bakura's eyes widened in surprise. Ryou stared into them. He saw suddenly and again that panicked look - frightened and alone - that human look that trembled in the face of death.

Human.

Bakura's brown eyes were exactly the same shade of his own.

The vampire gurgled and Ryou realised that there, against the wall, pressed against the body of the opponent he had hunted for years, he was holding the wooden stake just so very minutely short of the vampire's heart.

Bakura gurgled again, his eyes bleeding back to red.

Now. Now. Now now now now now now now NOW! Ryou's mind screamed. That one last half-centimetre. DO IT!

"Fuck!" Ryou screamed, and the sound tore out of him like the word of god.

He yanked the stake back out of Bakura's chest and hurled it away. The dark brown eyes stared back at him, confused. Ryou didn't see the rest of the street quickly empty itself of people.

"Fuck!" He screamed again, hoarsely as he struck the wall beside Bakura's head with his fist. "I hate you! I hate you!"

He hit the wall again, and then connected his fist with Bakura's stomach.

"Just kill me! Fucking kill me!"

The vampire gasped, taking in air again as the near-fatal wound in his chest was quickly sealing itself over. His eyes were no longer human at all. Ryou stepped up to them and shouted into his face.

"KILL ME!"

Everything he did was meaningless. Everything he'd done. Everything he'd become.

"Kill me," he whispered one last time, and collapsed at the feet of the creature that had obsessed him for so long.

And then he was wrenched into the air and pressed against the marble body he had come so close to destroying. He felt the caress of fangs on his neck for a moment before the sharp sensation of being bitten overwhelmed him, and Ryou dropped away from himself.

He looked around. "...What is this place?" he asked eventually.

He felt himself standing in a darkened room, the walls painted with murals whose bright colours were only hinted at by a flickering torchlight. He turned and inspected the closest wall and felt the air shift behind him. He turned back quickly and was faced with Bakura.

Aside from the vampire, the room was nearly bare. There was a high stone sarcophagus in the centre, its lid askew.

Bakura shook his head instead gestured back to one of the murals on the wall.

Ryou looked. He blinked. The figures were shifting. Their stylised forms were becoming more... Alive. They were -

Ryou wanted to blink again but couldn't move his eyes. He couldn't influence anything around him - the memory wasn't his. He was both himself and someone else. He was Bakura - and he hated himself. He was shifting through scenes of a bloody and meaningless life until suddenly he saw - himself. And -

Ryou tried to cry out, outraged and shocked as he watched himself with Anzu. As he watched flashes of them together - saw again her round and smiling lips - her polite way of speaking - the dresses she wore with her matching bonnets, carefully letting a few brown curls frame her face.

He struggled, realising where this trip down memory lane was heading, but found himself unable to break free - _Is this what you want_? he asked silently, bitterly, without real words. _You want that to be the last thing I see when I die?_

Ryou raged against the images he felt himself taking part in, watched as he/Bakura waited outside the manor, watched as Anzu, on their wedding night, her eyes dazed and unthinking, opened the window to their new bedroom. He was the vampire who effortlessly scaled the wall to slide across the window's threshold. He was the vampire who robbed himself of his new bride while he, Ryou, slept innocently in the bed, hair tousled and face smiling faintly - having known the joys of his new wife, his betrothed, the one he had been destined to marry from childhood, for the very first time.

He was the vampire who stared into the blue eyes of Anzu and tried to send her away - tried to fight himself - tried to will her back to her bed but she kept walking towards him, drawn to him. He didn't want her. He didn't want her but he was the vampire whose own mind games were out of control as he smelled the sweet scent of human skin and could hear Anzu's heart beating beneath her breasts, beneath her white nightgown. He was the vampire who could not see in front of him in his lust for blood.

Anzu's body slowly drained of its rosy colour but as the vampire he was only dimly aware of this. Instead, Bakura as he stood clutching the girl, his lips to her neck, was slowly sifting through Anzu's memories of life. Fighting them and seeing only Ryou.

Only Ryou.

A spark died. Anzu died. Ryou screamed against his the very real sensation of his own lips against her throat as he glanced upward saw himself stir in the bed and give a cry -

He knew the rest of the story. The memories stopped.

Ryou was abruptly kissing sandy Egyptian street. He gave a hoarse and ragged scream just to prove that he was able to. It was real. He tasted the crunch of desert dirt. His heavy leather coat as was on his back and the heat and bloodloss made him want to faint for a moment.

"You didn't want her!" He said suddenly, not caring about the particles of sand coating his lips. "How could you kill her when you didn't want her! I wanted her! She was mine!"

Ryou struggled to push himself up, light-headed as he was. He looked up and saw Bakura staring down at him. Bakura was wearing dark red again. A coat. He had a white shirt on - heat wouldn't bother him. He wasn't wearing shoes either, under the hems of his black pants.

There was a terrifying weakness on Bakura's face.

"Fuck you! I hate you!"

"Do you really?" Bakura asked him with little intonation.

"Yes!"

"That makes two of us," the vampire said, and then was gone.

Ryou, on his knees in the street, hung his head. Somewhere a dog barked. He didn't want Anzu. Bakura never wanted her. He wasn't stalking her. He had wanted Ryou all along. And now all that Ryou could taste was the despair inside Bakura's head - regret and fear and self-loathing and obsessive lust and bloodlust, emotions like a selection of addictive candy.


	8. France

"If there was any justice in this world," Bakura paused, smiling darkly, "We would have killed each other."

Ryou, the only other inhabitant of the train carriage, was staring out the window at the shadowy French countryside they were passing.

He took a moment to turn and look at the creature opposite him. Bakura sat in a long leather coat much the same as his own. Ryou had yet to decide if he was being teased, or if Bakura genuinely preferred that they both moved through the world in a swirling flap of the thick black material.

The smile on Bakura's face was small - was it possible to combine self-assurance and uncertainty in one smile? It shouldn't have been.

If there was any justice in the world. What was the distinction between man and monster? Somehow he would always carry the memory of cradling a soft body and feeling the satisfaction of draining it dry; always feel the regret like a permanent scar that was cut in that moment. And somehow he would always be himself, anguished, cradling the dead body of his childhood sweetheart and staring into her lovely, empty dark blue eyes.

Somehow he would always remember seeing himself and be obsessed with himself as both stalker and prey. Maybe he had been insane since Anzu died.

One way or another, he needed a reason to go on.

Ryou stared back across the jostling locomotive compartment. "There's still time for that," he said, finally.

Bakura grinned, wickedly.

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**AN: **...Yep. That's the end. Thank you to everyone who took an interest in this. I hope you're not disappointed with how it turned out... I personally am quite happy with it. Mwah.


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